


The Spock Files

by kenzz_95



Series: Trektober 2020 [26]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Also technically this is a college AU too but that's not the point, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, First Contact AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27219034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzz_95/pseuds/kenzz_95
Summary: Leonard tags along with his boyfriend Jim to go check out a meteor that crashed on the property of someone Jim knew growing up. But when they get there, they find not a meteor but what looks like a crash scene, and they discover someone in the corn field that will change everything they think they know about their place in the universe.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: Trektober 2020 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948633
Comments: 37
Kudos: 25
Collections: Trektober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trektober Day 27: First Contact
> 
> This is the result of the fact that I've wanted to write a first contact fic for AGES but all the first contact stuff I've seen is Spirk and I'm pretty obviously more of a McKirk person, so when I figured out an idea for this I just HAD to jump in and go for it. I've got all sorts of ideas about this story, so it's obviously not complete. 
> 
> Sorry for cheating on Trektober again and I hope you enjoy!

“Watch the damn potholes,” Leonard complained as the car jolted, knocking his knee against his chin from where his right foot was perched on the edge of the seat, knee pulled up to his chest.

“If we crash when you’re sitting like that, you’re going to send your knee through your skull,” Jim pointed out, not slowing down even a bit as he raced the Jeep through dark country streets in the middle of the night.

“Don’t crash then,” Leonard suggested, “And slow the hell down.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jim laughed, “I just realized how much I sounded like you just then. Shit. You don’t think we’re going to end up as one of those couples that talks the same, do you?”

“I will go out of my way to avoid that,” Leonard promised, only sort of kidding. His and Jim’s was a strange sort of relationship, one born of an unlikely friendship and the recent realization that they had been toeing the line between friends and lovers basically since the beginning and the eventual conclusion of “fuck it, what the hell?”. In the three months since Jim had inquired about Leonard’s interest in “a lateral shift in their relationship”, he hadn’t regretted it once. He was falling in love with the other man, maybe he was already there. But if there was ever a time to regret it, it was now as Jim drove 80 miles an hour down pitch black, barely paved streets without a single streetlight or marked speed limit. But then again, even months ago when they were “just friends” - as if they had ever been “just” anything - Jim still would’ve woken him up at 1 am on a technically-a-Sunday for something entirely asinine. Jim had gotten a call from someone who lived in the general area of where he grew up, apparently some sorta meteor or something had fallen on their property and their first thought had for some reason been to call the juvenile delinquent turned aerospace engineering student that used to live there and ask if he wanted it. And Jim did want it. Jim very much so wanted this stupid little space rock, and he had wanted it so much that he demanded they leave  _ right then _ so they could get to it before anyone else did.

After about an hour of driving through the Iowa farmlands, Jim pulled into the driveway of a solitary farmhouse and excitedly spoke to an older man in his pajamas who told them that the meteor had crashed in a nearby grove of trees, and that he had nearly called the fire department because for a bit it looked like it was burning but by the time he got around to it the fire was out, likely due to all the rain they’d been having lately. 

Jim nodded his thanks then took off running, weaving expertly through rows of drying stalks of corn like he had done the same thing dozens of times before, probably with far less permission than he had now. Leonard followed, hot on Jim’s heels and wishing he had worn better shoes as his feet sank into the mud. The corn turned into a small grove of trees and Jim stopped short, nearly causing Leonard to run straight into his back.

“God dammit,” Jim groaned, a little breathless, “I’m going to kill that old man.”

Leonard looked around at the scene unfolding around him, which looked to him to be some sorta crash scene. But the burned out vehicle sitting in the middle of it wasn’t like anything he had ever seen before.

“What the hell?” he muttered under his breath.

“Mr. Billings always makes these extravagant Halloween experiences for the local kids,” Jim explained, mostly sounding frustrated by the whole situation, “Guess he figured he could kill two birds with one stone this year, give me a preview of what he’s been up to and get me back from all the times I got drunk in his corn at the same time. He really went all out this year. The broken trees are quite the touch.”

“It smells like some real strong chemicals for an early Halloween prank,” Leonard observed. He couldn’t put his finger on the exact source of the smell, but it smelled like something had been burning that wasn’t supposed to be burning.

“And what would you say this is, then?”

“Satellite fell out of the sky?”

“You ever seen a satellite that looks like that, Bones?” Jim challenged and he shrugged,

“Dunno, you’re the aerospace engineer, not me. Besides, that doesn’t look like much of anything to me, just a smoldering, stinking, pile of rubble. Let’s just go home, Jim. This place smells like it’s gonna give us both cancer by the time we’re 40.”

“I have never seen a satellite that looks like that,” Jim proclaimed, but agreed to head back to the car anyways. 

They walked through the rows of corn back to the house, at least until Jim stopped suddenly, putting his hand up indicating that Leonard should stop as well. Before he could ask what was going on, Jim slapped a hand over his mouth.

“There’s someone else out here,” Jim hissed, barely audible over...oh, yeah, there was the soft sound of footsteps that now belonged neither to him nor Jim.

“Billings?” Leonard whispered, or at least tried to, but Jim’s hand was still over his mouth. In the glow of the moonlight he could see the laughter in Jim’s eyes as he took his hand off Leonard’s mouth, ran it down his arm, and intertwined their fingers. Despite not being able to speak anything close to clearly, Jim seemed to understand what Leonard had said because he shook his head and whispered,

“Probably his son. He always gets all dressed up to scare the kids on Halloween. I say we scare him first.”

Leonard mostly wanted to get back to the car, back to their apartment, and back to bed but there was something about the glint in his boyfriend’s eyes and...okay, yeah, he was definitely in love because he just nodded.

Keeping a hold on his hand, Jim led him through the rows of corn, footsteps silent as they headed to where they had last heard the noise. After a few minutes, Jim stopped again and peered out into a small clearing from between stalks of corn. Leonard followed suit and saw a man stumbling back towards the grove of trees. 

“On three,” Jim mouthed then squeezed Leonard’s hand, once, twice, three times. On the third squeeze, they both leapt from the corn and screamed “Boo!!!” at the tops of their lungs.

The man didn’t scream, but he spun quickly on his heels, one hand wrapped around on his ribs and another pulling a weapon from his waist and aiming it with precision. This may not have been what they had first assumed.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Jim protested, raising his hands in the air. Leonard mirrored the motion.

“Is that thing real?” Leonard hissed, likely barely audible to the man holding some sort of tripped out gun.

“You tell me, you’re from the deep south.”   


“Please, like rural Iowa is really any different.”   


“This isn’t Billings’ son,” Jim whispered, answering the question Leonard hadn’t yet asked, “That guy can’t keep a straight face in situations like this. He’d be busting a gut by now. And he knows better than to point anything that looks like a gun at anyone around here.”

The strange man’s weapon was still pointing right at Jim and Leonard.

“We thought you were someone else,” Jim explained with an easy smile, obviously trying to turn on the patented Jim Kirk charm with this guy, “But you’ve really gotta be careful walking around on land that isn’t yours and pointing weapons at people like that. You’re gonna get yourself shot.”

The man said nothing and didn’t move to lower his weapon. The way he was clutching his side was sending off alarm bells in Leonard’s head so he asked,

“Are you hurt? Do you need us to call you an ambulance?”

Nothing was registering on the man’s strangely angular face, and Leonard wondered if he didn’t speak English. He looked at the man, indicated his own side, and the man looked at him, inclining his head. Leonard took a half step forward and Jim whispered,

“Bones, what are you doing?”

Leonard said nothing, just kept his hands high in the air as he slowly approached the man with the strange weapon. The situation got even stranger as he approached the man, who looked around his own age but had these really pointy eyebrows and a bowl cut that covered the tops of his ears. Finally, when he was only a few paces away, the man lowered his weapon. Leonard shrugged out of his jacket and pulled up his own t-shirt, indicating that he wanted the man to do the same. The man didn’t look like he was going to do it at first, but then he swayed a bit, something flashed in his eyes, and he removed his strange jacket and pulled his shirt up for Leonard to get a better look. There was a gash on his side, gleaming dark with blood in the moonlight, and no wonder this guy was swaying he had probably lost a lot of blood.

The man seemed to be a fairly quick learner with Leonard’s impromptu signs, because when Leonard simply pointed at the ground the man sat down.

“Jim, he’s losing a lot of blood,” Leonard said, turning around to find the other man right at his shoulders. “You need to call 911.”

“No reception. We need to wait until we get back to the house,” Jim said, not looking up from his phone he was obviously trying to get service on. Great. Leonard was going to have to perform first aid then. He indicated for the man to take his shirt off all the way, and once that was done he started to try to rip strips of fabric to make a quick tourniquet. But the fabric was tough and wouldn’t rip. He threw the shirt on the ground with a groan and had Jim take his shirt off instead. Jim leered, made some stupid joke, but complied. Leonard ripped long pieces of the fabric from Jim’s shirt and requested some light from Jim since their phones weren’t doing anything else, but when he went to wrap the man’s chest now that he had light he saw something that made him literally fall back onto his ass in a pile of mud. The blood leaking from the wound wasn’t just dark, it was  _ green _ . 

“Bones,” Jim hissed, and Leonard knew he had seen it too. But even though he still had a year of med school left, Leonard was a healer through and through. He couldn’t possibly guess what was happening here, but he wasn’t about to leave a man to slowly bleed out and die in the middle of a corn field. He needed to figure out how to tell the man to inhale so he could wrap the bandage around his wound, but no matter how many times Leonard breathed himself, the man didn’t seem to be getting it. The man suddenly reached down to grab something, but Jim was quicker, swooping in and picking up the man’s weapon, wearing a triumphant grin on his face as he stood back up. But the man hadn’t been reaching for the weapon at all, instead he pulled some rectangular device out of his pocket, about half the size of a cell phone, and then began moving his lips.

“I think he wants us to talk,” Leonard suggested.

“We should get out of here, Bones,” Jim countered, “I don’t want to be here when his friends show up. Or the Men In Black or whatever.”

“I’m not leaving him to die here,” Leonard proclaimed, his tone leaving no room for argument.

“I just realized what people mean when they say sometimes the traits you admire most about someone drive you batshit.”

“How romantic.”   


“What, this isn’t the romantic outing you were hoping for, Bones?”

“I wanted to be in bed in the first place.”   


“After this, do you want to help me relive my teenage years and dry hump me in the middle of a cornfield?”

“Jim!”

“He can’t speak English anyways!”

“I do not mean to interrupt, but I believe you were attempting to ask me something,” the man said, his voice a sudden shock of cool, unaccented English. Leonard nearly fell on his ass again, but instead took a steadying breath and crouched back down to the man,

“I need to apply pressure on this or you’re gonna bleed out. And something tells me we can’t just bring you to the ED and pump you with a unit of O- and call it a day. Take a breath, not too deep, just how you would normally breath. And hold it.”

The man did as he was asked without comment and Leonard tied the bandage tight around his side.

“Are there others with you?” he asked as he tied off the bandage.

“Others?” the man asked in that same unnaturally even tone.

“Okay, let’s cut the bullshit,” Jim cut in, “You’ve got green blood and those weird ass eyebrows and some weird box that helped you learn English in like a minute and whatever the hell  _ this _ is…” Jim held up the weapon and then suddenly his eyes grew wide as though he were only just realizing something, “And that back there...that was your ship. Shit, man, you’re an alien. Like, an actual alien. Holy fuck.”

Leonard snorted, “Why do I feel like you didn’t come up with your conclusion until halfway through that?”

“If you could please return my weapon to me…” the man requested but Jim shook his head and cut him off,

“I don’t think so. How do I know you aren’t going to kill us for finding you out? I’m keeping this thing.”

Jim then shoved the weapon in the waistband of his pants, but Leonard yanked it out,

“If you shoot your dick off I’m breaking up with you.”

“What, because you love my dick or because you would think that indicated something about my intelligence?”   


“I dunno, you tell me Jim, you’re the genius in this relationship.”

“I am not going to kill you, and I am alone here. The other members of my ship have died in the crash. However, I echo your partner’s request that you would be wise not to place the weapon inside your pants,” the man said.

“So you crashed on a planet and you don’t have anything or know anyone and you’ve got a major laceration on your side?” Leonard guessed, “Would you like to come back to Iowa City with us? You need stitches, and something tells me it wouldn’t work out well if you wandered into an ED in your state.”

“Wait, Bones, you can’t invite this guy back to our apartment like that! We don’t even know his name! All we know is that he took a wrong turn at mars and ended up here!” 

“I am  _ not _ leaving this man to bleed out and die in a field by himself,” Leonard reiterated.

“You may call me Spock,” the man, Spock, said, “And you are Jim, and you are Bones.”

“Call me Leonard. Only Jim calls me Bones.”

“Leonard. While I appreciate your hospitality, my mission parameters were that I should allow myself to die before I exposed myself to humans. It was a mistake to allow this, but I found it strangely difficult to kill you.”

“Thank you?” Jim asked, “But that whole secrecy ship has sailed. I’ve got your weapon and you’ve lost too much blood to overpower us both, so we’re gonna just keep being alive and knowing. If you still wanna die, that’s on you.”

“But if you end up in the local morgue you’ll just expose yourself to more people,” Leonard finished.

“It does seem, then, that the logical choice would be to come with you,” Spock concluded.

“Whatever ya need to tell yourself,” Leonard drawled, holding a hand down to help Spock up. Spock did not take his hand, and instead grasped his wrist as he allowed himself to be pulled up to standing. Jim still didn’t look too happy about any of this, but he didn’t say anything as the two men helped their new friend back to their car.

Leonard wanted to keep the guy, the  _ alien _ , Spock, awake and talking as they drove back to Iowa City. This task proved more difficult than he would’ve thought. For one, Spock wasn’t very talkative. Maybe it was the blood loss, but nearly every time Leonard asked him a question, he would respond with some variant of “my mission parameters do not allow me to discuss this with a human.” And, well, out of the two of them Jim was by far the more natural small talker. That man could charm the pants off pretty much anyone he wanted to - sometimes literally - so he would’ve been far more adept at the task of making sure Spock didn’t pass out from blood loss than Leonard was. The only problem was that Jim was currently occupied by driving 80 miles per hour down county highways and scowling out the windshield. Leonard couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed at the way his boyfriend was acting. Jim was supposed to be the adventurous one, the one that talked him into doing all sorts of dumb shit, the  _ brave _ one. But something about this situation had thrown him hard, which Leonard understood because holy shit there was an alien in their backseat and he’d woken up the previous morning pretty sure that extraterrestrial life was just, like, bacteria and shit. He understood why Jim was wary about bringing this strange,  _ alien _ man into their home, but his boyfriend had always been kind and compassionate and the idea that he would’ve contented himself with leaving this man in the middle of a corn field to bleed out was pissing Leonard off. He tried to swallow that, though. They had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Jim may have been upset, but they were still best friends even when they were arguing, so once they got back to their apartment he did his part in slinging an arm around Spock’s back to help the alien man up the stairs to their third floor apartment.

“K Bones, where do you want him?” Jim asked as he unlocked the door to their shared apartment. “Couch?”

“I can’t see for shit in the living room, we need somewhere with overhead lights.” Leonard looked around their apartment. If he’d known they’d be having guests he would’ve cleaned up a bit more. Spock was probably going to think that all humans stored their dishes in the sink or their hoodies over the back of the couch. Although, when he thought about it, Jim sort of  _ did _ typically store his hoodies over the back of the couch. “Let’s go with the island,” he suggested, failing to see another flat surface in this place with decent overhead lighting. Damned college apartments. 

Jim nodded and allowed Spock to lean against the wall as he set to work clearing off the island. As for Leonard, he went to go fish his first aid kit from his bedroom. Luckily he had gotten himself a suture kit, although if Spock’s injury was too severe or if he hit any organs or major blood vessels then there was a chance they may be fucked.

Jim was in the process of cleaning off the island with a disinfectant wipe when Leonard came back in with his first aid kit. Good man. Leonard nodded his thanks. Jim’s return nod was somewhat stiff, but at least he wasn’t protesting anymore. He knew what needed to be done, Leonard had put his foot down and thankfully Jim was allowing him this.

Together they lifted Spock up onto the island then Jim darted out of the room while Leonard was washing his hands, only to appear about a minute later holding rubbing alcohol and latex gloves.

“Thanks, Jim,” he smiled softly.

“Are you gonna give him anything for the pain?” Jim asked, “Like, ibuprofen or something? I’ve still got some Vicodin from my nose job last year.”

“Quit callin’ it that,” Leonard rolled his eyes. In reality, Jim had gotten punched so hard that his nose had required surgery to fix it, although in his defense it hadn’t been his fault. He only called it a nose job to see peoples’ reactions. “And you don’t just need to go around shouting your opioid possession from the rooftops. You’re gonna get us robbed.”

“By  _ him _ ?” Jim asked, jerking his head back to Spock who seemed to be ignoring this little exchange, which was good because talking about him like he wasn’t there like this was pretty rude. “He doesn’t even know what Vicodin is!”

“Whatever. Either get rid of that shit or give it to me to put in my medkit, we shouldn’t just be keepin’ that around. And no, I’m not going to give him anything. For all we know, human pain meds could kill him.”

“Ya know, Bones, I’ve had stitches without drugs before and they fucking suck,” Jim pointed out, “We should at least give him some booze. Hey, Spocko, they got booze on your planet?”

“My name is Spock,” Spock corrected him coolly, “And I do not know to what you are referring when you speak of ‘booze’. The translator does not translate colloquialisms well.”

“Alcohol,” Jim clarified, producing a bottle of bourbon. Leonard’s best. Damn, Jim must be pissed.

“In the early days of my planet, fermented plants were occasionally used as an antiseptic, if that is what you are referring to.”

“Well, yeah, sure, but you also drink it,” Jim pointed out, “It’ll take the edge off when Bones stitches you up.”

“I don’t think so, not with that,” Leonard shook his head, “That’s top shelf stuff.”

“Yeah! Don’t you think he deserves the best introduction to alcohol earth has to offer?”

“ _ Jim _ .”

“Fine. What about that tequila we got for our 4th of July party but never finished?”

“I wouldn’t force that shit on a damn war criminal.”

“It’s decent tequila.”   


“That’s a damned oxymoron.”

“Yeah, well, not everyone used to take tequila shots until they threw up at parties after their ex girlfriend dumped them back when they were at Ole Miss,” Jim pointed out, “The tequila is fine.”

Jim produced said tequila, handed it to Spock, and instructed him to drink. Taking it a bit too seriously, Spock tossed the bottle back and drank the liquor like it was water. Leonard snatched it from his hands before this spiraled out of control, or at least more out of control than it already was.

“Okay, that’s about enough of that.”

“I do not find the taste to be pleasurable,” Spock noted. Leonard, who was feeling vaguely nauseous just from holding the damn bottle, mumbled,

“You and me both, man.”

As for Jim, he took a swig from the bottle then slid it onto the counter.

“Are you a healer?” Spock asked as Leonard slapped on his gloves and began to examine the wound in the better lighting of their apartment.

“He is,” Jim answered for him, eyes beaming with pride completely at odds with the slight scowl still set in his mouth.

“I still have a semester and a half of medical school left. I ain’t a doctor yet, but I’m the closest thing you got,” Leonard replied.

“He didn’t ask if you were a doctor, Bones, he asked if you were a healer,” Jim pointed out, “You’ve been that since I met you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know what he meant,” Leonard rolled his eyes, trying to cover up how his heart squeezed funny at the expression in Jim’s eyes and how his boyfriend was willing to do whatever he needed to help out despite the fact that he wasn’t the happiest with Leonard for bringing a damn alien into their apartment. The two of them had always argued funny, ever since they’d met. There was always an undertone of “but you’re important to me and I’m  _ never _ leaving you,” in every argument they’d ever had.

“So,” Leonard turned his attention back to the man lying on their island, “Anything ‘outside of your mission parameters’ that you normally couldn’t ‘reveal to a human’ but that might help me save your damn life?”

“Yes. You may find it important to know that the shrapnel that struck me only just missed my heart,” Spock replied. Leonard looked down at Spock’s wound, which was right around where his liver would be. Interesting. He was going to be, as far as he knew, the first human to ever treat an alien and he wasn’t even finished with med school yet. This was going to be one hell of an experience.

Spock had been lucky, although the alien probably didn’t feel like it. His injury was nearly a thousand times worse. As it was, the metal from his ship that had pierced his abdomen had just missed any major blood vessels and, thankfully, his heart as well. Leonard removed the remnants of the metal, which had apparently been largely removed by Spock himself, which had been a stupid ass decision in Leonard’s nearly professional medical opinion. Everyone knew when something stabbed you, you weren't supposed to take it out yourself, although in Spock’s defense he likely did not think he would find any medical care. But Leonard had been able to stitch him up nicely and had gotten the bleeding under control, which he was grateful for because he could hardly take this man to the ED. Not with the way his green blood was shining eerily off Leonard’s gloves. He stopped short of giving Spock an antibiotic because he didn’t know how the alien’s body would respond to the azithromycin he had in his first aid kit. He simply wrapped up the newly closed wound in clean bandages and declared that they would have to watch it closely over the next few days to ensure it didn’t get infected.

He and Jim had a brief debate over which bed to put Spock in, since their couch was far too small for a grown man - or alien - to sleep comfortably. Eventually it was decided they’d put Spock in Leonard’s room, and Leonard himself would sleep with Jim that night, as they often did lately anyways. This was mostly due to the fact that Jim was still not in the best of moods, and Leonard knew better than to push too much. It was late, they’d had an impossibly weird night, and there was an alien sleeping in their apartment. If Jim was still in the same sour mood come morning, they’d discuss it then. For now, it was 5 am and Leonard just wanted to go to sleep. At least until he saw Jim tuck something odd underneath his pillow.

“What the fuck is that?” Leonard asked, sitting up in bed and affixing his boyfriend with his best glare. Or, at least, his best Jim glare, which was not nearly the same level of glare he shot at random high school interns standing around gossiping in the middle of the halls of the hospital where he was just trying to do his rotations.

“This? Oh, it’s just Spock’s weird alien gun thing,” Jim answered easily, as though sleeping on a strange alien weapon was a totally normal and logical thing for him to be doing.

“Uh huh,” Leonard nodded, “And you think that you’re bringing that to bed with us? Under your pillow? Jesus Christ, man, you’re gonna shoot my head off, or worse, yours!”

“It’s fine, Bones. This way, he won’t be able to get to it without waking me up first.”

“What makes you assume he’s going to try anything? He’s been nothing but perfectly cordial so far. We saved his life.”

“Bones, he’s an alien! And actual, real life, outer space alien! In our apartment! We don’t know what he could do, what he wants, what he’s capable of. He all but said his mission parameters were to kill any humans that would find him out and we  _ know _ . I don’t understand why you’re so okay with this! We could get hurt!  _ You _ could get hurt, and I won’t let that happen.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t understand why you were so okay with leaving the guy to die in a field.”   


“I don’t think you fully understand just what you got us mixed up in.”   


“I didn’t have a choice. I never could’ve lived with myself if I hadn’t done something.”

“I know. I know, I just…” Jim groaned, “Can we finish talking about this tomorrow? I feel like I can barely put my thoughts in any kind of sensical order right now and I don’t wanna say something I don’t mean.”

“Sure, but you ain’t sleepin’ on some weird alien weapon. I’m putting my foot down on that,” Leonard insisted and Jim rolled his eyes,

“You’re doing that a lot tonight. Ever heard of compromise?”

“I’m not compromising by allowing you to sleep on a potentially deadly weapon. Put it somewhere else.”

“How’re you gonna feel if he kills us in our sleep, huh?”

“I dunno, Jim, I imagine I won’t feel much of anything. Since I’d be dead and all.”

Jim sighed so Leonard continued, “Just throw the damn thing in your closet, those doors squeak like hell when you open them, we’d hear it for sure.”

It took him a moments’ hesitation but Jim finally relented, stood up and tossed the weapon under a pile of shoes in the closet.

“I love you, Bones,” Jim mumbled into his pillow as he laid down again, “I promise not to sell you out to the men in black or whatever.”

“You really are a regular romantic, aren’t you?” Leonard teased, then ruffled Jim’s hair and kissed him goodnight. The past few hours had been by far the strangest in Leonard’s life, but at least he had Jim. Through aliens and weird disagreements and anything else, he’d always had Jim, and he always would. He didn’t know a lot of things, but he did know that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, my friends, I have returned from my post-Trektober break meets post election screaming, and I have for you chapter 2 of this fic. 
> 
> Featuring: breakfast food, universal translator confusion, messy apologies, and, as always, a bit of fluff

Leonard woke up alone, which in and of itself wasn’t all that unusual. Sure, he and Jim had been sharing a bed a lot lately, since they’d decided to give dating a try, and really they’d done it with decently regularity before as well, but Jim was a bit of an early riser. And a night owl. The kid kept really weird hours, and was often at the library or the engineering lab working on his thesis before Leonard even woke up.

He stretched and groaned upon seeing the time. His damn body could never sleep past 10 lately, no matter what time he went to sleep. He was still beat, but knew lying in bed wouldn’t actually accomplish anything so he padded half asleep out to the kitchen and started himself a pot of coffee. He rubbed at his eyes lazily, leaned against the counter, then nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the man sitting on the bar stool, his back straight and eyes focused.

“Holy shit,” Leonard cursed, taking a moment to catch his breath which took longer than it usually would’ve when the events of the past night came rushing back to him. Spock somehow looked even less human in the light of day than he had the night before. His dark brows sat at an odd angle on his forehead, his slightly messed hair showed the pointed tips of his ears, and his skin had a pale green undertone to it, which made a bit of sense actually, when Leonard remembered the green blood. But even more than his physical appearance, his posture was shockingly alien. Spock sat with his back perfectly straight on the backless stool, not fidgeting or anything. It was almost unnatural, how still he was. Maybe Leonard was just too used to Jim “Perpetual Motion Machine” Kirk.

“I must confess to not understanding your turn of phrase, Leonard,” Spock admitted in that same cool and even tone from the night before, “I was unaware your people found anything sacred about excrement.”

“It’s just a figure of speech,” he grumbled, “They not have figures of speech where you’re from? Idioms?”

“My people tend to say what they mean. It is only logical.”

“Yeah, well, most humans ain’t that logical. Where’s Jim, anyways?” Leonard had been assuming...well, he hadn’t been assuming anything, really. His brain was still getting started, and now that he had remembered everything, the absence of his boyfriend was starting to worry him. Especially given the presence of the alien in his kitchen and the disagreement he and Jim had had the previous night.

“Your friend instructed me to inform you that he was going out, but that he would not be long. Additionally, he has requested that you not eat breakfast until he returns.”

“Okay, and why didn’t he tell me that himself?”

“He indicated that he could not locate his...I believe he called it a cell phone. He did, however, give me this.”

Spock handed him a post-it note, which basically said the exact same thing he’d just said but with the addition of “I promise Spock didn’t kill me and stuff my body in the couch”. It was in Jim’s handwriting, with a little heart and the initials JTK at the end. Well, that settled that, he supposed. Typical Jim, though, losing his phone while they had an extraterrestrial visitor.

Leonard had time to change the dressing on Spock’s injury from the night before and finish his coffee before Jim returned. As it turns out, Spock wasn’t much of a talker, which was fine by him. He could do without small talk in most cases as well, though he had to admit he was curious about the man in front of him. Never in a million years, did he think that he’d have a goddamn alien sitting in his kitchen.

Owing mostly for a lack of anything better to do, Leonard conducted a small search for his boyfriend’s phone, eventually finding it under the couch. He swore the kid would lose his own head if it weren’t attached to his body.

“Did he say how long he’d be?” he finally asked Spock. It wasn’t so much that he was worried, but mostly that he was hungry. If Jim didn’t arrive soon, he was going to make breakfast, any of Jim’s plans be damned.

“No, your friend did not indicate how long he would be gone, nor what he was doing,” Spock replied, and something in that sentence, something that he noticed Spock had been saying the whole time, caught Leonard’s ear. He was probably being too sensitive, but at the end of the summer he’d taken Jim home to meet his family, back when the transition in their relationship was still fresh, and despite the pair holding hands frequently his family still insisted on calling the two “really good friends”.

“Jim’s not just my friend,” he pointed out, “What, do you not have queer people on your planet or something?”

“I apologize, the translator I have does not do well with colloquialisms, please explain what you mean by ‘queer people’,” Spock requested.

“Ya know, men who love men, women who love women, people like Jim and me who love both and others.”

“Ah. Of course, gender is not defined in exactly the same way on different planets, however a myriad of different sexualities and identities are represented on my home world. I, for instance, am homosexual, although I will admit to not understanding this line of questioning.”

“You keep calling Jim ‘my friend’. Don’t get me wrong, Jim’s the best friend I’ve ever had and nothing’s gonna change that, but he’s also my boyfriend. Partner, if you wanna be more formal.”

Spock nodded, “Indeed. I apologize for any offense I may have caused, I was unaware of the preferred term to use for your relationship, and the friendship between you was obvious.”

“Hey hey!” Jim threw open the front door before Leonard had a chance to respond. The blond was smiling brightly and carrying a takeout bag as well as several cups of coffee. “If it isn’t my favorite human and my favorite extraterrestrial.”

“If I am not mistaken, I am the only extraterrestrial that you know,” Spock noted.

“Whatever, take the compliment. What’re you two talking about anyways?”

“Leonard was merely explaining to me the intimate nature of your bond.”

Leonard almost choked on his coffee and Jim gaped, wide-eyed.

“I just told him you’re my boyfriend,” he clarified, because dammit if Spock hadn’t made it sound like he’d spent the past hour since he woke up detailing all their activities in the bedroom.

“Yes,” Spock agreed, “I would like to note, however, that while the translator device I have allows me to communicate with you in your language, it is not always the best at the finer points of language and regional specifics. I apologize preemptively for any offense I may cause.”   


“Sounds like you’re just tryin’ta insult us then get away with it,” Leonard grumbled.

“It would be illogical to insult you then deny that I had done it.”

“Okay!” Jim interrupted before this conversation could devolve anymore, “Who’s hungry? I brought breakfast.”

“Took ya long enough. I was just gonna eat without you if you didn’t show up soon.”

“Whatever, you’re the worst,” Jim rolled his eyes and placed a styrofoam container in front of Leonard with a flourish. “I drove half an hour to get this shit.”

And indeed he had. Leonard didn’t recognize the nondescript containers or bags, but inside was a massive apple pancake with bacon and fruit on the side. He recognized the apple pancake as coming from his favorite brunch spot up in Cedar Rapids. And the coffee Jim placed in front of his was a praline latte from his favorite cafe in town.

“Jim,” he started to thank the other man, who cut him off with a smile, a quick kiss at the corner of his jaw, and a laugh,

“Don’t worry, Bones, your secret sweet tooth is safe with me. I promise I’ll keep telling everyone you always take your coffee black or whatever the fuck you want.”

This, Leonard realized, was shaping up to be one of those odd Jim Kirk apologies he always did. Jim had a bit of a hangup with apologies, getting him to actually  _ say _ one was like pulling teeth, and God did the man have some sort of wall around the words “I’m sorry” and “I apologize”. It was to the point where Leonard was about 95% sure it was more than just a problem with vulnerability or whatever the fuck and was actually a result of the deeply fucked up childhood his boyfriend had alluded to but never fully gotten into. It was fine, though. Jim had gotten better, had learned how to dance around saying those words that, the one time he’d said them in front of Leonard, made it look like he was going to vomit or have a panic attack or maybe both. There were three main components to the Jim Kirk apology: some sort of thoughtful gift or act of service, the acknowledgement that he had fucked up and caused hurt, and the promise that he would try to do better. Sure, none of that actually involved the words “I’m sorry”, but in Leonard’s opinion “I know what I did was wrong and hurtful, I’m trying to change, also I cleaned the apartment” was pretty much the same thing. It was obvious as he took a bite of his favorite pancakes he rarely treated himself to that this was Jim’s step one in apologizing for how he’d acted the previous night. Part of him worried that while he understood Jim’s apology formula loud and clear that Spock wouldn’t get the nuance of it, but at the same time the alien man didn’t seem like one to take personal offense at things as easily.

“Is this meat?” Spock asked suddenly, staring down at his own breakfast. Jim had just gotten him something of a sampler, with bacon, eggs, toast, a couple small pancakes, hash browns and a bunch of fruit. Nothing overly fancy, but a good introduction to some earth staples.

“Uh, yeah, that’s bacon,” Jim confirmed.

“I am a vegetarian, I do not consume animal flesh. It is not done by most on my world.”   


“Okay, well that’s just the bacon, then. Unless...are you vegan as well?”

“No, however I will only eat animal products that are sourced ethically where the animal is treated with respect and dignity. That is the standard on my planet, however I am aware not all cultures share this same belief.”

“Oh,” Jim looked profoundly awkward, because while Spock didn’t know it this had been something of a peace offering on his part. “Well, then the eggs are out as well, but…”

“Darlin’, toast and pancakes have eggs and milk as well,” Leonard pointed out, resisting the urge to begin the sentence with “hey dumbass”, because if Jim was attempting a shade of vulnerability he needed to feel supported in that. “And I bet they cooked those hash browns in butter.”

“Okay,” Jim still looked a bit deflated, even as he placed a hand on Leonard’s shoulders, “Well, there’s always the fruit! And, um, I’ll make you something! Bones, do we have anything, like, organic?”

“Do I look like I’m made of money to you?”

“Damn...what do vegans eat for breakfast anyways?”

“The fruit is all I require, from my understanding of humans, you require more food than I do,” Spock said, spearing a piece of pineapple with a fork and chewing it like he was pondering something. Maybe he was just pondering the taste of pineapple. It was weird to think of seeing the world through the eyes of someone who’d never even been to earth before.

“We can go to the store this afternoon,” Leonard assured his boyfriend, squeezing his hand then taking another bite of his pancake. It was damn good.

“Cool,” Jim nodded, opening his own takeout container and picking at some waffles, “By the way, you can stay if you want.”

“I do not wish to impose,” Spock argued, “I understand this dwelling is only designed for two.”

“It’s fine, Bones and I sleep together a lot anyways,” Jim pointed out, then looked over at Leonard with something akin to hesitation in his eyes. His drift was easy enough to catch, even though Leonard wasn’t quite sure where the sudden reversal had come from.

“You’re welcome to stay ‘till I take your stitches out. After that, we’ll talk.”

“You heard the man, doctor’s orders.”

“I’m not a doctor yet,” Leonard said, at nearly the same moment as Spock said, “I was under the impression that he was not yet a doctor.”

“Oh, what the fuck ever,” Jim rolled his eyes.

The three of them didn’t really have much by the way of a plan after breakfast. Or, well, they sort of did but it pretty much began and ended with “we’ll talk in a bit”. This was mostly owing to the fact that Leonard really wanted a few moments alone with Jim before they tried to figure out this incredibly weird situation they’d found themselves in, but also because he would really love to no longer be sitting around in just his boxers and a t-shirt in front of a stranger. He never had bothered getting dressed.

“So, you changed your tune,” he noted, following Jim into his bedroom. Which, apparently, they’d be sharing for the next week or so. This was mostly fine because they often  _ did _ sleep together, but Leonard did like having his own study space, to the point where he actually hadn’t given any thought to getting a one bedroom since he and Jim started their relationship.

“Yeah,” Jim sighed and leaned against the wall of his little bedroom, “About last night...I...Bones, I’m sorry.”

Leonard blinked twice, slowly, and Jim looked like he wanted to throw up.

“Okay,” he nodded finally, “Care to tell me just what the hell that was?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, I heard you say somethin’ you haven’t said to me since that time you hosted a graduation party in undergrad and trashed our entire apartment. Why now?”

“Because I love you,” Jim said simply, “I love you, and I want this to work, and all the articles say that being able to say you’re sorry is really important in a relationship.”

Leonard sighed and leaned against the wall as well, shoulder to shoulder with his boyfriend, “Look, Jim, correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve been assuming that those words were somehow related to some trigger from your deeply fucked up childhood.”

“I mean, I dunno if I’d call it a  _ trigger _ .”

“Jim.”   


“But, yeah, you got the general point. I’ll tell you about it later, but right now…”   


“You don’t have to,” Leonard assured him, “I’ll listen when you want, but I’m not gonna force you into talkin’ about something you’re not ready to talk about. What I’m trying to tell you, Jim, is that you’ve been apologizing without saying the words pretty much our entire friendship. I’m not a complete dumbass, I have noticed that. And the way you’ve been doin’ it is fine with me, if you’ve got some issues with those words and need to talk around them then I don’t mind in the least.”

“You sure?”

“You think I’m just gonna not mention when something’s bothering me?”

“You’re right.”   


“I know I am. But, darlin’, I don’t want you pulling up shitty memories just because some damned Buzzfeed article told you that you had to. Sure, apologies are important in relationships, friendships too, but ‘apologies’ and ‘saying sorry’ ain’t always the same thing. I don’t want you turning to some clickbait article instead of talking to me first either. I coulda saved you the trouble.”

Jim intertwined his fingers with Leonard’s, then said, “Thanks, Bones. You deserve an award, putting up with my bullshit all the time.”   


“I love your bullshit. And, besides, I’m not ignorant of my own crap. Now, Jim, tell me what exactly it is you wanted to tell me, but in whatever way you feel comfortable with.”

Leonard knew comfortable was a stretch, because even when he talked around “I’m sorry” it still looked like Jim was sort of itchy and uncomfortable, but apologies  _ were _ important and Jim had known that for a while.

“Bones, last night I acted like an ass, I never should’ve expected you to leave Spock in that field, and in hindsight I’m glad you put your foot down. I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to stop thinking about what happened to him. I freaked the hell out, I mean for Christ’s sake he’s an  _ alien _ and it was 3 in the goddamn morning and all I was thinking about was how this was messy and dangerous and I didn’t want you to get hurt. But you were right, Bones, we couldn’t have just left him there. And we can’t just kick him to the curb this morning.”

“Even if he has to co-opt my bedroom.”

“Uh, yeah, probably should’ve talked to you about that first,” Jim admitted, “But you agree, right?”   


“I don’t wanna have to chase him down again to take his stitches out. But once that happens we’re gonna have to have a serious discussion as to if we want to have a goddamn alien roommate on a long term basis. And by  _ we _ , I mean you and me, Jim,” Leonard clarified, because, well, he did want to help Spock, he couldn’t turn the other man away now, but if this was gonna be a long term thing? He liked his space, dammit, and Spock was a goddamn alien for Christ’s sake. An actual, real life alien just...sitting on their couch. And Leonard hated living with other people, which oddly Spock counted as but Jim firmly did not.

“Yeah, I know,” Jim nodded, “But, on the bright side, I’m pretty sure if he was gonna kill us he would’ve done it already.”   


“So that’s what’s behind your change of tune, then?”

“Guess so. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not giving him his weapon back, but, Bones, this is so cool! There’s a goddamn alien in our living room!”

“Yeah, and just yesterday I was convinced the only extraterrestrial life was bacteria and shit.”

“Well, that was always bullshit,” Jim grinned, then kissed Leonard, just on the corner of his lips, “So, we’re good, right?”

“Yeah Jim, we’re good,” Leonard confirmed. “You and me? We’re fine. This whole situation? Weird as hell.”

“Oh, it could be fun!” Jim was smiling brightly in the way that Leonard loved, but also knew to fear just a little bit, “Wanna go harass Spock for some information about his home plane?”

“Jim, the man lost a lot of blood yesterday! Leave him alone! And I really do have to take a shower.”

“Can I join you?” Jim leered just a bit, probably about ⅔ joking. Leonard rolled his eyes.

“You’re a menace to society.”

“You didn’t say no!” Jim pointed out, and Leonard slammed the bathroom door in his face which he figured was as good of a no as any. And, well, that way Jim didn’t see the fact he was laughing.

“I need to return to my ship,” Spock announced over lunch, which was basically just leftover breakfast with the addition of some of the organic, free range stuff Jim had bought while Leonard was in the shower.

“Look, I know I’m pretty out of my depth here, but from what I saw last night I don’t know if that ship’s gonna fly again,” Jim pointed out. 

“You are correct, and I do not have the materials here with which to perform repairs,” Spock agreed, “However, it may be possible for me to get in communication with my home planet. Additionally, it would be prudent to better hide both my ship and the bodies of my former crew mates.”

“Uh, how many bodies are we talkin’, here? Jim and I didn’t see anything like that last night,” Leonard said. Spock’s comment about his former crew mates had largely been forgotten by then, as there had been a few other things that were more pressing on Leonard’s mind. But now, the idea of him and Jim wandering around the site where a bunch of aliens had died in a spaceship crash was a little bit eerie and a lot bit sad.

“I had two other members of my crew, both of whom perished in the crash. It is unfortunate, and they will of course not be able to have traditional Vulcan funeral proceedings, but that, along with the chances of their deaths, were risks they were well aware of when they signed on to this mission, as was I. I was able to relocate their bodies in order to make them less visible to passing humans, however due to the nature of my injury I was not able to do as good of a job as I would have liked.”

“You mean the injury you  _ still have _ ? You try to go around digging graves for grown adults you’re gonna pull your stitches out. You’re lucky to be doing as well as you’re doing now!”

“Well, we’re gonna have to drive you anyways, maybe we could help out a little,” Jim offered.   


“While keeping my identity a secret is no longer a possibility as it pertains to the two of you, you should still not be exposed to more information than is necessary. It would not be wise to influence the natural development of your world.”

“I think you overestimate the amount of influence we have on ‘the development of our world’,” Leonard rolled his eyes. What was he gonna do with all of Spock’s weird alien secrets anyways? It’s not like anyone would believe him, except weirdos on the internet. Although, there was always the possibility that Jim would try to gain a following of weirdos on the internet as a joke, which could only end badly. Maybe Spock was right.

“What do you say, Bones? Wanna go help Spock not bleed to death in a field. Again?” Jim asked, because dammit did he know exactly what to say to convince Leonard to give up his afternoon of studying. But, really, one of them had to drive Spock back down to Riverside and it probably would be better for them both to go, because although Spock had been perfectly cordial so far they still didn’t trust him yet. And then there was the issue of the alien pulling his stitches, which Leonard desperately hoped he didn’t do. He had worked hard on those, dammit.

So, it was decided then. Less than 12 hours later, they were headed back to Riverside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to tell you when the next chapter will be, however I have returned to my pre Trektober ways of just working on half a dozen WIPs, switching between them as the mood strikes me. So...the next chapter will be sometime :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead lol sorry

“You really think you can contact your home planet all the way from here?” Jim asked Spock as he drove south, once again heading to the Billings’ farm. Leonard sat passenger again. Usually Leonard preferred to drive as Jim sometimes drove like a bit of a maniac, but it just made more sense this way because Jim knew the way perfectly without having to rely on GPS.

“If I can repair the communicator on my ship, I should be able to do so. I was able to transmit a distress call as my ship was crashing, however further information would be invaluable in my rescue,” Spock explained.

“Yeah, but that’s gonna take  _ forever _ , right?” Jim asked, “I mean, even assuming that you could get some sort of signal to travel at light speed, the nearest star system to earth is still over 4 light years away! I mean, man, you’re gonna be stuck here for like 10 years, at least.”

“You seem to be operating under the assumption that my message and our ships are unable to travel faster than the speed of light.”

“Well yeah, going faster than the speed of light breaks the laws of physics. It’s impossible.”

Spock said nothing. The silence was heavy. “Wait,” Jim jerked his head around to look at the man in the back seat, “It  _ is _ impossible, right? I mean, come on.”

“Interfering in the natural development of this planet would be against my mission parameters,” Spock said simply.

“Mother fucker,” Jim breathed.

“Watch the road, Jim,” Leonard rolled his eyes.

“So how long did it take you to get here anyways?”   


“That is classified.”

Jim exhaled heavily but said nothing else right away. His expression was a strange combination of awe and annoyance. The man wanted answers, that much was clear. Leonard was curious too, although less about how Spock got here and more about the smaller details. When was he ever going to have a chance to ask an alien questions again?

“Everything’s classified,” Jim finally grumbled.

“The hell were you doing all the way over here anyways? Three people seems like an awful small force,” Leonard said. He’d been thinking a lot that day about what exactly all this meant. Was this a precursor to some kind of alien invasion like in all the sci-fi movies Jim liked to watch? But maybe they weren’t trying to invade earth and had instead just planned on abducting some unsuspecting human, probing them, and sending them back to earth to have everyone call them crazy. All of this really was calling into question everything Leonard thought he knew about the world, and he didn’t like not knowing things. He and Jim had always had that in common.

“Force?” Spock asked, “Are you under the impression that my people came to this planet with hostile intentions?”

“Didn’t you? Why the hell else would you be here?”

“Don’t be such a pessimist, Bones. I for one welcome our new alien overlords.”

Spock raised those angular brows and said, “Our mission was one of science and research. As I have stated on multiple occasions, we are forbidden from interfering in the natural development of your world. In light of that fact, it would be illogical to attempt any hostile invasion of your planet.”   
“So you’re just weird voyeurs looking down at us from the sky, then?” Leonard asked, “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“It is likely that humans will eventually significantly change the current state of intra galactic politics. It would be beneficial to be aware of your planet, species, and culture when that time comes.”

Leonard looked between Spock, who had that same cool and impassive look on his face that was probably just his norm, and Jim, who had his thick brows knit together as he drove. There was a beat of silence before Jim asked,

“Okay, what the fuck does any of that mean? What exactly are ‘intra galactic politics’? And why do you think we’re going to fuck it up?”

“I have already revealed to you far more than my mission parameters allow. However, our observations have led us to believe that humans tend to be hot-headed, impulsive, and highly illogical.”

“Seems like you’ve been exclusively observing Jim Kirk for the past quarter century,” Leonard teased and Jim swatted him on the arm playfully,

“Guy insults the entire human race and you’re still talking shit on me! I can’t believe you!”

“And yet you aren’t denying it,” Leonard rolled his eyes.

“You’re the worst boyfriend I’ve got.”   


“I fucking better be. Better be the best, too.”

Leonard had just been teasing around, he knew that despite Jim’s more storied sexual history, he would never step out on him like that. It wasn’t even a concern, but Jim’s face still grew more serious and he put a hand on Leonard’s shoulder,

“You know that you are.”

“I know, it was just a joke, Jim. I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything,” Leonard assured him, bringing up his own hand to wrap it around Jim’s, still on his shoulder. He squeezed once, comfortingly, then removed their hands from his shoulder and settled them between the two seats.

“I love you, Bones,” Jim said quietly and, God, one of these days Leonard was going to say it back. He wanted to, because the more he thought about it the more he realized that he felt it, of course he felt it, he probably had for a while. But there was such a finality to the words, the ones Jim had said so freely and easily from the beginning, like they were a universal truth. The ones that he hadn’t once pressured Leonard to say back. Leonard couldn’t say it, though, not until he was more sure of it than he was sure of…

Spock suddenly cleared his throat in the backseat, pulling Leonard out of his thoughts. Jim laughed a little and Leonard blushed, both of them having briefly forgotten the alien in their back seat. “What is the estimated length of time to our destination?”

“I think that’s alien for ‘are we there yet?’” Leonard said, trying not to feel too awkward about his private conversation with Jim being overheard. It had been their own fault for forgetting they had company, but that didn’t stop it from being a bit uncomfortable. He was never a fan of PDA, be that physically or emotionally. Jim, on the other hand, was fully unbothered by physical PDA, but shied away from emotional vulnerability in front of everyone save for those he trusted the most. Though he didn’t seem as bothered by it in this moment as he usually did.

“We’re close,” Jim said, “So, you gonna insult humanity some more?”   


“It was not an insult, it was merely an observation my people have made about yours,” Spock said, not commenting on the moment he’d interrupted. Leonard was grateful for that, but still…

“Not an insult, my ass.”

Jim and Leonard were trying to explain the concept of college parties to a man who seemed like he was from a world that was deathly allergic to fun when all of a sudden Jim gripped the steering wheel tight and cursed,

“Fuck. Motherfucker, what the fuck?”

“If I am not mistaken, you have missed the farmhouse we came from last night,” Spock observed, which Leonard thought was odd considering that he personally never would’ve noticed which farm was which.

“Motherfucker,” Jim said again, hitting the wheel with his palm. Leonard rolled his eyes,

“Just make a damn u-turn, there’s nobody around for miles.”

“I don’t know how they got there so fast…” Jim muttered, fully ignoring his boyfriend.

“Jim, what in the hell are you talking about,” Leonard asked, gripping Jim firm on the bicep, which seemed to get the man’s attention.

“Look back at the farm, Bones!” Jim exclaimed, “the goddamn government beat us to it!”

Leonard turned around in his seat and saw a number of SUVs parked in front of Billings’ farm. Slightly odd, but not alarming to this degree.

“What, so every SUV convention is the goddamn government? They aren’t even all black.”

“‘Course not, that’d be suspicious as hell.”   


“Jim, just turn around, it ain’t a big deal.”   


“No, Bones. Something is up, I can feel it. People around here don’t drive cars like that. This isn’t right, someone came out here to investigate the crash and we’re not getting all tied up in it.”

“I need to return to my ship,” Spock chimed in.

“Let me tell you, Spock, I feel like being dissected in Area 51 would be worse for your whole secrecy thing than whatever they’re gonna find at the crash site,” Jim said and Spock’s eyes went wide, which was probably the closest he’d come to expressing a human definition of emotion since they’d met the guy.

“Forgive me, I am not familiar with the intricacies of human humor.”

“It’s not a joke.”   


“He’s full of shit, ignore him,” Leonard rolled his eyes. 

“Oh, come on Bones, we’ve got an alien in our backseat, time to drop the whole skeptic act. You really think the government doesn’t know about this?”

“We have not identified ourselves to your earth government. As I have said on multiple occasions, we are forbidden from interfering in the natural development of your world.”   


“Yeah, but you guys aren’t the only ones out there, are you?” Jim challenged, “You said intra galactic politics. That’s more than just you guys. Someone’s been drawing crop circles and abducting people.”

“You’re so full of shit it’s comin’ out your ears, kid. Just turn around and go back there, quit jumping to the most ridiculous conclusions you can think of,” Leonard said. He’d always been a skeptic, with Jim being far more likely to believe in the more paranormal aspects of the world than he was. The way he saw it, just because there was an alien in their backseat didn’t mean that every crazy son of a bitch who said they were abducted by aliens was suddenly telling the truth, or that the government had a super secret alien investigation task force.

“Nuh uh, we aren’t risking it,” Jim shook his head, “I’ll drop you two off up in Riverside and go back alone. I’ve known Billings since I was a kid, I’ve got a reason to be dropping in there.”   


“And what, I’m too fragile to go with you? I ain’t a flower, Jim, I can take care of myself.”

“Someone’s gotta babysit Spock,” Jim pointed out, “And you going alone to Billings’ would be way weird. You guys can just wander around town for a bit or something, I’ll swing back and pick you up when I’m done.”

“I am not a baby, as you have stated, and do not require constant supervision,” Spock intoned cooly.

“I just gave you stitches less than 24 hours, Spock. You’d be lying if you said you were at full strength, and I’m gonna be pissed if I have to redo them. Jim’s right, it’d make the most sense if I stuck with you.”

“Great, so we're all in agreement,” Jim nodded as he pulled over to the side of Riverside Main Street. Which also just so happened to be the only street of any consequence in the whole town. “I’ll call you when I’m headed back, Bones. Don’t get into too much trouble without me.”

“You should grab a coffee or something in town. On the off chance this  _ is _ the government, they may be wondering why you’re coming from the opposite direction of your listed address,” Leonard advised, not sure why he was even going along with this but really, they were treading dangerous waters here. It never hurt to be careful, especially when it came to Jim. That man attracted trouble more than anyone he’d ever met.

“You’re brilliant, Bones,” Jim grinned, his eyes lighting up, “What would I do without you? There’s a diner with pretty good pie here, though I bet it’s all full of lard and cream and all that good shit so no good for Spock. If you end up there, get me a piece of the chocolate silk, okay?”

“Not sure where else we’d end up, not like there’s much to do here,” Leonard rolled his eyes, unbuckled his seat belt, and got out of the car. Spock got out as well, pulling on the beanie he’d borrowed from Jim to cover his ears, but before they walked away Leonard followed a whim and leaned against the side of the Jeep and looked Jim in the eyes, “Jim, be careful.”

“Oh, you know me, Bones!” Jim smiled, shockingly soft and sweet for his teasing tone.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Leonard muttered.

“I’ll try,” Jim promised, pushing himself out of his seat and leaning over the passenger seat to kiss Leonard quickly on the lips and whisper, “I love you.”

Leonard nearly returned the phrase, but instead bit his lip, nodded, squeezed Jim’s hand one more time, then let his boyfriend drive off to go be faced with only God knows what, unable to shake the feeling that this was all about to become a lot more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am carried by the whims of my ADHD brain from one story to another. See you guys in a time between tomorrow and next year for chapter 4.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain says we're doing this one now

Leonard was eating apple pie with ice cream, and Spock was eating a bowl of fruit. Maybe that should’ve made Leonard think about his food choices a bit more, especially given how often he told Jim to eat a damn vegetable, but really Spock eating fruit was more due to the complete lack of vegan options at this little greasy spoon diner they’d found themselves at while waiting for Jim to come back. As it turns out, asking minimum wage diner employees if their animal products were free range, organic, and cruelty free didn’t necessarily yield helpful information. Color him shocked. So Spock was getting introduced to the concept of the weird diner fruit bowl that was mostly assorted melon and the occasional grape, and Leonard was eating pie while attempting to get some studying done on his phone. While he knew his mama would’ve smacked him for staring at his phone while eating with someone, Spock not only didn’t seem to care, but actually seemed relieved to have a break from small talk. He seemed like a pretty quiet, introverted guy, which Leonard claimed was a nice break from all of Jim’s energy, despite knowing full well that Jim hadn’t socially exhausted him once since they’d met.

Studying on his phone also gave him a good excuse to be staring at it constantly, which may have felt pathetic and paranoid otherwise, but he wanted to know the second Jim texted him that he was coming to pick them up. Leonard was worried about his boyfriend despite everything he’d said about Jim being full of shit about all of this, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t spend far too long staring at Jim’s little blue dot moving on his location app. Studying was, at the very least, a distraction.

Time seemed to move slowly, especially as Jim’s promised hour came and went with his little blue dot still blinking at the Billings’ farm house. And Leonard wasn’t being neurotic or paranoid or anything of the sort when he texted Jim an hour and a half in to check in with him. He was just being a concerned boyfriend, it was fine, he wasn’t freaking out at all. After two hours, all while still telling himself that actually he was being normal about this and not way more worried than he had any right to be, he called Jim, but still no luck. So Leonard ordered yet another piece of pie, this time pecan even though he was always disappointed by pecan pie in the north, and kept forcing himself to study when he’d rather be staring at a little blue dot on his phone.

“It is illogical to worry about things that you cannot change, Leonard,” Spock said out of absolutely nowhere. Leonard looked up from the flashcards he was pretending to look at and raised his eyebrows,

“Who says I’m worried? Stay out of it.”

“So you are not concerned that it has been one hour and 34 minutes, by earth time, since your partner said he would contact you?” Spock challenged with a brow raise to rival Leonard’s own. “And this is not impacting your ability to focus on your work?”

“Shut up and stay out of it,” Leonard snapped, but Spock was undeterred and just kept staring at him and eventually he found himself sighing, “Fuck yeah I’m worried about Jim. His location hasn’t left the Billings’ farm this whole time, but what in the hell is taking him? I don’t know who the hell those people were out there, but I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Oh, you’ve been by the Billings’ place?” the waitress asked, sliding up to the table to pour Leonard another cup of shitty coffee. Dammit, he’d been living in a college town for so long he’d forgotten how gossipy small towns were. “Quite a scene over there, isn’t it? Say, you’re Jim Kirk’s friend, yeah?”

“I have been informed the two prefer the term partner, or boyfriend,” Spock said, obviously thinking he was being helpful, remembering their conversation from that morning. Leonard took a long sip of his coffee and silently prayed to any gods listening that this conversation would just be fucking over already. The waitress, Candace according to her nametag, just looked at Leonard and laughed,

“Oh, honey, if you think the Kirk boy swinging both ways is a surprise you obviously didn’t grow up here. Folks will be more surprised to hear that he settled down with someone than by that someone being a man. Need more coffee, sweetie?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Leonard grumbled, attempting to sound as grumpy as he could in hopes of chasing her off. He was not in the mood for whatever this conversation was. Not ever, but especially not now. Candace was not deterred,

“Ted Billings said the Kirk boy and a friend came by late last night to get a look at some space rock that crashed on his property. Next thing ya know, this place is crawling with feds. Oh, they didn’t say they were feds, but we know the type. Haven’t heard a word from Ted since this morning, but word on the street says a satellite fell down. Some people’ll are talkin’ UFO, but…” Candace finished by scoffing and waving her hand dismissively. Leonard once again looked into his coffee, this time in an attempt to not give anything away. Spock, thank God, said nothing. “So tell me,” Candace continued when Leonard completely ignored her, “What’d you see out there last night?”

“Dunno,” Leonard shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee and trying to appear casual, “All I know is that some hunk of space junk fell there last night, couldn’t tell ya what. I’m a med student, not an aerospace engineer.”

“Bet Kirk’s got a theory, though,” Candace said, for some reason intent on keeping this conversation going. Damn nosy townspeople.

“Darling, you claim to know Jim Kirk and yet you think the kid’s got a theory he didn’t pull fully from his ass because it seemed entertaining to him? It’s probably just a damn satellite, it ain’t that exciting.”

“Most exciting thing to happen around here in awhile,” Candace said, then looked at Spock suddenly with great interest. “Now I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you around before.”

“That is correct,” Spock said simply.

“He’s visiting from out of town,” Leonard added, because, well, that wasn’t untrue. Fortunately, they were saved from further questioning by a honk outside the diner that turned out to be coming from Leonard and Jim’s Jeep, which had pulled up in front of the restaurant. Finally.

“We’d best be going, that’s our ride.”

Candace looked slightly disappointed to lose out on the opportunity to try to pry details from Leonard, but went to ring them up at the cash register nonetheless. Jim honked twice more as he paid, for some reason preferring honking at them like a child to actually calling them like a fucking adult, and Leonard nearly said as much until he noticed Jim’s face as he and Spock approached the car. Rarely had he seen Jim look so tense and uncomfortable, and Leonard got the distinct feeling that they were damn lucky that Jim had come to get them at all instead of ditching them altogether to go drown whatever problem he’d acquired in booze or fights or any other of his former troublesome coping mechanisms. 

Nobody spoke on the drive back up to Iowa City. Spock didn’t seem especially talkative at the best of times, and whatever he knew or didn’t know of human body language he was clearly able to tell that now was not the best of times for Jim. Leonard knew Jim well enough to know that prodding at the man when he was this tightly wound wouldn’t lead to anything good for either of them, and Jim was rarely chatty when he got like this, so he didn’t bother asking. Yet.

The drive was tense and weird, and Leonard was mostly just glad that Jim was in one piece, even though whatever had happened at the farm had obviously shaken him. Jim looked ready to bolt the second they arrived back at their apartment, and when he started heading to his stupid motorcycle Leonard followed, hot on his heels.

“I need to be alone, Bones,” Jim snapped, speaking for the first time since he picked them up. If anything, the request only made it less likely for Leonard to allow that. Not when Jim was in a mood like this.

“I don’t think so, Jim,” Leonard said. He was fairly sure Jim wouldn’t bolt in the middle of their argument, but still kept his eyes on his boyfriend as he went back to the car for their helmets. Spock was still standing by the car, watching the exchange like you’d watch animals interact at the zoo, but if he was going to get Jim to talk they were going to have to be alone for it so Leonard tossed Spock their keys and said, “You can head up. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”

“I’m serious, Bones,” Jim said, and he’d straddled the stupid crotch rocket he liked to zoom around on but didn’t actually make a move to leave. Leonard didn’t answer, just went back to the bike, shoved the helmet on an unsuspecting Jim’s head, then put his own on. He hated that bike, he hated it so fucking much, he didn’t have his own license and if it were up to him he’d never get on the damn thing, but he knew Jim liked to drive it when he was upset and he also knew Jim drove about a hundred times more carefully with Leonard’s arms wrapped around his waist, so Leonard swallowed his fear and insisted upon coming anyways whenever he felt like Jim was riding the thing more for the risk than for sheer enjoyment.

“I’m serious too,” Leonard said, straddling the god forsaken bike and wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. “You don’t have to say a goddamn word to me, but I’m coming with you. No arguments.”

Jim seemed to know that he’d lost this one, and really there was obviously some part of Jim that wanted Leonard to tag along whether he knew it or not, so Jim just heaved a sigh, started the motorcycle, then zoomed off at a speed that made Leonard nauseous. Goddamn fucking motorcycles.

As Jim sped around the streets of Iowa, Leonard became increasingly glad he came along. If this was how Jim was driving with Leonard in tow, he didn’t like to think how he’d be driving alone. Thing was, Leonard knew Jim would never risk his life, though he seemed to have no qualms about risking his own, which is why Leonard insisted on accompanying his friend in these situations. Sure, Jim was driving altogether too fast, but the roads were clear, traffic was light, and he stuck to the highway which was by and large straight and safe. So it could’ve been worse. If Jim had been alone, it would’ve been worse, especially because Jim only wore a helmet at all because he knew if crashing without one didn’t kill him, his boyfriend would. So Jim drove and Leonard held on tightly, didn’t ask where they were going, if anywhere at all, and tried to look out for cops because there was no way in hell Jim was going anywhere in the vicinity of the speed limit.

After 2 long hours on the stupid bike, when Leonard was numb from his fingers to his ass to the adrenaline that used to be in his veins, Jim pulled off the road at a seemingly random pond, stopped the bike in a fishtail that would’ve flung Leonard from it entirely if he hadn’t been holding on so tight, and stomped over to the pond without so much as a word. Knowing that his boyfriend wanted some time alone, and feeling like kicking rocks at a pond was a safe way to do so, Leonard didn’t follow. He stayed at the bike, too busy watching Jim’s figure in the moonlight, shoulders tense as he flung small stones into the pond, to actually study or even think about being productive. Finally, when Jim’s haphazard throwing of stones turned into carefully skipping them across the pond, Leonard pushed himself up from the bike and went to stand next to his boyfriend, shoulder to shoulder.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Jim said, not looking at Leonard as he flicked a stone across the pond. It got 5 skips before sinking to the bottom. Another hidden Jim Kirk talent, accompanied by another hidden Jim Kirk apology. “Thanks for putting up with my bullshit” was a Jim-ism for “Sorry for giving you bullshit.” 

Leonard nodded, “Thanks for not smearing us along I-80.”

“You know I wouldn’t. Yes, I know that’s why you come when I get like this, and yes there’s a part of me that’s glad you do.” Jim was still looking straight ahead, the moon reflecting in what would always be the most stunning pair of blue eyes Leonard had ever seen. Taking a bit of a chance, Leonard reached for Jim’s hand and intertwined their fingers. Jim neither acknowledged the contact, nor pulled away from it. There was another minute of silence, just crickets and passing cars until Jim broke it again,

“It’s interesting. All the times I got arrested in high school, I never was interrogated about it. Makes sense, I guess. I was usually caught in the act, what was there to even ask about? Turns out it sucks a lot.”

“At Billings’ house?” Leonard asked, stomach sinking as he imagined Jim being slowly pried apart by God knows who, all while he sat in a diner eating pie.

“ _ Crawling _ with feds, Bones. Now’s probably not the time to say I told you so, but…”

“But you’re saying it anyways.”

Jim looked over at him and cracked a smile that let him know that regardless of what had gone down that day, he was okay. Just stressed and upset. “Yeah. Anyways, there were dozens of them just in the house. Threw me into a side room the second I walked in the door, apparently Billings told them I was there last night. He still thought it was a meteor when they showed up, they told him it was a satellite, and they didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know what I saw last night.”

Jim had always hated not being believed, and funnily enough that frustration extended to when he was lying, too. It was another thing, like many of Jim’s more emotionally sensitive spots, that the man attributed to his “tragic backstory” but refused to elaborate on. Leonard could only hope he never met any of the people that tried to steal the bright, beautiful thing in his best friend’s soul, he was certain the encounter wouldn’t go well for any of them regardless of any oaths he might have taken.

“Billings told them you were there too,” Jim continued, as bitter as Leonard had ever heard him.

“Why wouldn’t he? Jim, he has no idea what any of this is, he just thinks a stupid rock fell in his backyard. This is way bigger than him. Hell, this is way bigger than us. May I remind you that we have an alien in our apartment.”

“Officially it’s a satellite,” Jim said, ignoring Leonard and drawing patterns in the gravel with the toe of his shoe, “That’s what I told them I thought it was. It super obviously  _ isn’t _ , though, and they know that and they know what I’m in school for so they know I know that. But I don’t wanna know what happens to us if they find out we know aliens are real, and I don’t really wanna find out what they have in store for Spock either. And I don’t want you involved in this.”

“Well it’s too late for that, isn’t it? Jim, I appreciate the gesture but I can take care of myself.” God, this whole defensive and protective side of Jim was one Leonard had rarely seen before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

That finally made Jim turn to look at him fully,

“That’s the thing, Bones, you can’t! And neither can I! Like you said, this is so much bigger than us! There’s an  _ alien _ in our  _ apartment _ ! I just spent nearly 3 hours getting interrogated by a branch of government that wouldn’t tell me their names. I felt like I was going to be fucking taken into custody, for what I don’t know. Neither of us can handle this alone, and I’d rather bear the brunt of it than have us both get involved, because I know I won’t have to do it alone.”

Jim was looking at him by the end of it, really looking at him, not frenzied and angry and afraid like earlier but instead open and 100% trusting. There was something about the fact that Jim knew, despite all his childhood trauma and intrinsic trust issues, that Leonard would be there to catch him, without fail, every single time, that made Leonard want to hold on tight to Jim and never let go. Moreover, it made him want to do everything he possibly could to make sure that fragile, perfect trust never broke. In the meantime, he settled for wrapping his arm around Jim’s shoulder and pulling him in close,

“I’m always gonna be here for you, Jim. But it sounds like we don’t have much of a choice with which of us gets involved in this and to what extent, so we’re just gonna have to work with what we get. Together.”   


“Jim and Bones against the world,” Jim smiled, dropping his head on Leonard’s shoulder. God, he’d do anything in the world for that smile. 

“Damn straight,” Leonard agreed, “Now, if you’d be so kind as to tell me exactly what you told the feds so our stories match up when they inevitably grill me on this shit, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

“Okay,” Jim agreed, “And after we should swing by that hipster late night ice cream place near campus. I bet they have shit Spock will eat.”

“Jim, it’s already past midnight and you drove us into fucking Illinois, I think we’d be pushing ‘late night’ even if we left now. If you don’t drive like such a goddamn maniac on the way home, we’ll stop at McDonald’s and what Spock doesn’t know won’t kill him.”

“I’m driving, we’ll stop wherever I want, but if we can find a McDonald’s with a functioning ice cream machine, we have ourselves a deal, Bones.”

“Great, then get talking, kid. We’ve both got class in the morning, and I don’t think babysitting an alien is gonna get us out of it,” Leonard said and Jim laughed brightly, a stark contrast to his mood earlier, then began to share the exact details of his interrogation that day. Leonard’s gut feeling had been right: this really was getting complicated.


	5. Chapter 5

Spock was asleep by the time Jim and Leonard finally got back to their apartment after driving all over town in search of a McDonald’s with a functioning ice cream machine. It was nearly 4 am, and Leonard had class at 8. Turns out having an alien in their apartment was not very good for his sleep schedule.

Jim’s sleep schedule was normally very erratic, if you could call it a schedule at all, and usually he’d bound out of bed with the sun to go for a run and work on his thesis, but when Leonard’s alarm rang the next morning Jim was still sleeping soundly next to him in bed. Brushing a lock of golden hair out of his boyfriend’s face, his heart squeezing at the look of Jim so relaxed and peaceful next to him, Leonard forced himself to pry away from Jim’s arms and get a start on his day. But first, coffee.

He found Spock sitting once again on a bar stool at the counter, writing something down in a little notebook he must have found somewhere. Maybe he should’ve been more curious about the swirling alien script, or what the hell their guest was writing, but that could all wait until after he had some caffeine in his system.

After a cup of strong coffee, a shower, another cup of coffee, setting the coffee machine to be ready with a cup when Jim’s alarm went off for class, and pouring himself yet another cup in his travel mug, Leonard finally deemed himself awake enough to talk to their otherworldly guest.

“I’ve got class,” he explained, shoving things into his bag, “I’ll be out all day. Jim doesn’t have class ‘till 10, so he’ll be out for a while. Let him sleep, he needs it. You know where the food is. Anything Jim didn’t buy yesterday probably doesn’t adhere to your dietary standards, unless it’s produce. Don’t burn the house down and don’t kill my boyfriend. And you better not be writing anything weird in there.”

Spock, who had seemed unbothered by Leonard wandering around the apartment that morning, looked up from his notebook, “I am merely taking notes of my observations from my time on earth. As my mission was one of observation, and I am observing humans closer than most Vulcans ever have had the opportunity to do, it is only logical that I keep a log of what I have learned from my time here. You should not assume negative intentions, it would be illogical to harm you or Jim.”

“Yeah well 36 hours ago you were saying it was illogical not to kill us, so forgive me if I’m not quite on board with the flip,” Leonard grumbled. He was so not in the mood for logic games that morning. Or ever, really.

“Circumstances have changed. My people are not, as a rule, violent. I do not wish to harm you, especially not as you and your partner have shown me great kindness since I arrived,” Spock said, “I did not mention this last night, as Jim appeared to be in a highly emotional state, but, as I said yesterday, I must return to my ship.”

“Yeah, well, that’s gonna be more complicated than we thought, Spock,” Leonard said, swinging his bag over his shoulder, “And if I stick around and explain it, I’m gonna be late for class. I’ll be back this evening, we’ll talk at dinner. Enjoy your day on earth, don’t pull your stitches.”

“I, too, wish you success in your studies. Thank you for your assistance these past few days.”

“Don’t mention it,” Leonard grumbled, slipping out the door before he was even more late to class than he already was. And, fuck, he was still tired. He needed more coffee.

Leonard didn’t mean to be cocky, or tempt fate, but if he was being fully honest with himself he was sort of kicking medical school’s ass. Sure, there had been a handful of times over the past 3 years where it had felt like the other way around, and he was working damn hard for this, but he was consistently at the top of his class, and rarely seemed to be as shaken by things as most of his fellow students were. Jim always called him a medical genius in that proud boyfriend voice he’d used long before they were actually dating, and while he wouldn’t really go that far, there was something intensely satisfying about being a bit of a natural at the thing he’d wanted to do his whole life. That, however, did not mean that he didn’t have to study, and top of his class or not he certainly didn’t have time to be running around after an alien all day. He had shit to do. So he buried himself in an empty room to study between hospital rotations and meeting with his advisor and a damn study group he felt like he did most of the work in. He often spent his lunch talking to Jim, but ended up having to tell his boyfriend in no uncertain terms that he just didn’t have the time that day. Jim had replied with a generic frowny face emoji, then a sweet and supportive message that ended in a request that he maybe not spend all evening at the library that day. He hadn’t planned on doing that, and was going to go right back home to Jim to try to deal with the Spock problem after he finished his rotations. At least that was the plan until he was approached by a man in a suit as he was leaving the hospital.

“Leonard Horatio McCoy?” the man asked, although it really felt more like a statement. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good. Nobody used his middle name, not if they knew what was good for them. He usually refused to tell anyone his middle name, even when pressed, and aside from his mama yelling at him and Jim teasing him, he didn’t think he’d heard anyone call him that in years. The fact that he was quite certain he’d never seen this man in his life didn’t make it any better.

“I’m busy,” Leonard said, walking past the man in a futile attempt to get away from whatever bullshit this was.

“Let’s try this again. My name is Agent Matthews, and I need you to come with me.”

Leonard cocked an eyebrow, “You got some identification on ya, ‘agent’? My mama told me not to get in cars with strangers.”

Matthews did not seem amused. “You think you’re real funny, don’t ya?”

“Depends on the day,” Leonard snapped back, “Now are you gonna show me some ID and give me a good reason why I should waste my time answering the same questions we both know you asked Jim yesterday, or can I leave?”

Matthews sighed, looking a lot like a man that would rather be out investigating UFOs than dealing with grumpy Southern med students, then finally produced a badge and corresponding ID. Matthews was apparently FBI, a member of a cryptically named division Leonard had never heard of before.

“While I’m sure you and Kirk spent all night getting your stories straight, you still need to be debriefed.”   


“About what?” Leonard challenged with a raise of his eyebrows, “You normally do all this for a satellite crash?”

“Oh, you’re gonna be just as bad as Kirk, aren’t you?” Matthews asked, “Look, you coming willingly is going to make things a hell of a lot easier on both you and your friend.”

“Is that a threat?” Leonard asked.

“McCoy, when we’re threatening you, you’ll know.”   


“Clever.”

“You want me to go back to Jim for information on the man you were seen eating with yesterday?” Matthews asked, and Leonard’s blood ran cold. The last thing he wanted them to do was get involved with Jim again, and them having questions about Spock wasn’t any good either. Not really seeing any other option, Leonard sighed,

“Well, lead the way, why don’t ya? Let’s get this the fuck over with.”

While he certainly never thought his boyfriend was overreacting in any way, Leonard left the debriefing that was actually an interrogation with a new understanding of why Jim had been so stressed and upset the previous night. He had known this was coming, knew he was basically living on borrowed time until they found him to practically give him the goddamn Spanish Inquisition, and had prepared some answers with Jim the night before, and yet the whole situation was still angering, exhausting, upsetting, and incredibly stressful. Matthews brought him to a room at the local police precinct, one they had obviously borrowed from local authorities who probably didn’t have a clue what was going on, and from there they had taken his phone and grilled him for several hours. Matthews and two other agents traded in and out, asking him questions and telling him nothing. Some of the questions were ones Jim had been asked the night before, and some felt all new to him. Thankfully, their interest in Spock seemed minimal. They were simply trying to ascertain who knew what, and anyone who’d been spending a lot of time with Jim and Leonard over the past couple days was a point of interest to them. Leonard thought he sold his “Spock is just a friend visiting from out of town” line fairly well, mostly because nothing he said sparked further interest from his interrogators. Interviewers. Whatever. Their readiness to believe that Spock had nothing to do with this, however, did not mean they believed what Leonard was telling them. Quite the contrary.

It was a bit of an awkward situation to be in, really. Leonard knew that the agents knew that the crashed object in Billings’ farm was no satellite, and he knew that they knew he knew that too, but both parties were stubbornly refusing to admit what they knew, and what they knew the other knew. He stuck with his narrative, though, and tried to gleam as much information as possible from the agents interviewing him. That was more Jim’s forte, he could probably get these guys to reveal how much they knew without even realizing they were doing it. Leonard was mostly left trying to piece together what they knew based on what they asked him. After a long 3 hours stuck in a room without so much as a drink of water and feeling like he was in more trouble than he’d ever been in all for doing nothing, the agents finally turned him free. According to them, the “satellite” that had gone down was sensitive government property, and they were to stay away from it and avoid discussing what they saw with others. This was phrased less as a request and more of a demand, spoken with the inescapable knowledge that he was leaving at all under their power, not his own.

Proving once again to be completely unhelpful, the agents didn’t offer Leonard a ride back to the hospital where he’d parked his car. He was left to walk half an hour in the chilly fall night air with a dead phone before he made it back to the Jeep and headed to his apartment where he assumed Jim would be worried sick about him. What he didn’t expect was to find Jim sitting on the couch, leaning over a chess board on the coffee table with Spock sitting opposite of him on a chair. Spock looked up at Leonard as he walked in the door but Jim didn’t look up from the board. Chess wasn’t really Leonard’s thing, but Jim had taught him how to play anyways and he thought he knew enough about the game to tell that Jim was losing. To a man who had never played the game before that day.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Leonard asked as he kicked off his shoes just inside the apartment, “I spent all that time yesterday worrying about you and then when I come home late you’re playing fucking chess?”

“Bones!” Jim jumped up, seeming to notice his arrival for the first time, “Wait, shit, what time is it?”   


“Almost four hours after I said I’d be home, thanks so much for the concern,” Leonard rolled his eyes and nudged a piece of cold pizza sitting on the counter in a box from a fancy joint in town they’d never been to before. 

“How the hell long has this been sitting out anyways?”

Jim looked over at the clock on the oven and cursed, “Fuck it’s late. Wait, where were you? I decided to teach Spock how to play chess to pass the time and, well…”

Jim trailed off, looking both concerned and embarrassed. Thing was, Leonard did know. He knew better than anyone how sometimes Jim just got so intensely focused on a task or project that time ceased to really exist for him. Jim had unintentionally spent countless nights in the lab, barely even realizing it until the next morning, and making sure he ate 3 meals a day was usually Leonard’s unofficial responsibility during finals week. Normally it didn’t bother him. Leonard loved Jim’s unbridled passion and just accepted his propensity to occasionally hyperfocus on things as part of Jim. After the evening he’d had, though, he wasn’t feeling especially patient and had a hard time not being a bit annoyed that his boyfriend hadn’t even cared that he had been stuck in an interrogation room at the police station for the past 3 hours. Leonard did, however, know himself well enough to know that he should hold his tongue until after he got some food and water in him. If they were going to argue about this, which he wasn’t sure they were yet, then it had to wait. He was a real bastard in this wonderful combination of hungry, thirsty, tired, and stressed, and at least two of those things could be taken care of before he let Jim know how annoyed he was at this whole thing. So the only thing he said in response to Jim was to repeat,

“How the hell long has this pizza been out, Jim?”

“The pizza arrived at 6:08 pm,” Spock chimed in. Leonard nodded in response, then the alien went back to looking at the chess board. 

“You can’t eat this,” Leonard declared, sweeping the leftover pizza into the trash, ignoring Jim’s noises of protest as he did so.

“Look, I didn’t do it on purpose, okay? You know how I get sometimes…” Jim explained and Leonard rolled his eyes again,

“I ain’t throwing the pizza away as revenge, I’m throwing it away because I give a damn about our digestive systems and enteric diseases suck. I’m eating before we talk about this.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Jim agreed, “You are an asshole when you’re hungry.”

Failing to find any decent food in the fridge, and not even having anything close to the energy to cook something, Leonard settled on a bowl of cereal and a hot cup of mint tea. His irritation evaporated as he ate, just as he suspected it would, and by the time Jim spoke again he found any resentment completely gone.

“They got to you, didn’t they? The feds?”

Leonard took a sip of his tea, “Yeah, cornered me as I was leaving the hospital. Frankly I’m glad they had the common courtesy not to barge in and take me in the middle of rotations. Seems like they’ve got a room set up at the police station, they wanted to know all sorts of shit. I see why you were upset yesterday. Whole thing was a massive pain in my ass and I knew it was coming.”

“Does it seem like they figured anything else out since yesterday?” Jim asked, hopping on the bar stool next to Leonard and shoving his hand in the cereal box.

“Dunno,” Leonard shrugged, “Didn’t wanna raise suspicion. They asked me about Spock.”

“Shit,” Jim paused, handful of cereal halfway to his mouth, “Do they know?”

“Don’t think so. Didn’t seem too interested in him, they just knew I was with him at the diner yesterday. Told them he was a friend staying from out of town, I think they bought it.”

“I do not mean to interrupt,” Spock chimed in, still from his chair in the living room, “However, Jim has impressed upon me the importance of avoiding detection from your government.”   


“Jeez, don’t scare the guy, Jim,” Leonard shook his head. Sure, they were in way over their heads here, and they were going to do their damnedest to keep Spock out of the government’s hands, but Jim didn’t need to be filling the poor guy’s head with images of alien dissection and Area 51 and all that shit that probably wasn’t real anyways.

“It is illogical to fear that which we cannot control,” Spock said, so apparently whatever scare tactics Jim pulled hadn’t worked that well. “It is, however, also illogical to put those who have helped you in danger. I will, of course, leave if it becomes dangerous for you if I stay.”

“Like I told you earlier, Spock, it’s also illogical for us to turn you away on your own. We’re in this mess, we’re not dumping you on your ass just because it’s not convenient,” Jim said and all Leonard could do was sigh,

“So help me if I hear the word ‘logic’ one more time I’ll smack someone.”

“I feel like threatening harm should also be against the Hippocratic oath,” Jim said, nodding like he’d just said something profound. Leonard elbowed him in the ribs just to prove that he would, Jim swatted at his arm with a laugh, and Spock looked like he was contemplating if getting taken by the government would actually be worse than this.

“What’re the chances that they don’t actually know anyone was on board that ship?” Jim asked.

“Given that it is obvious the ship is set up for piloted flight and extended living, the odds are no better than 0.573%, and that is given the assumption that your government officials are not very intelligent,” Spock said.

“It’s literally impossible that anyone could actually figure those odds, but thanks for the number straight from your ass,” Leonard grumbled and took another bite of his cereal. The sugary kind that he always got after Jim for eating. It was just one of those days.

“Yeah, I’m not sure even the government is that incompetent, although they have surprised me in the past,” Jim said, then looked over at Spock who looked like he was about to say something and shook his head, “It’s a figure of speech, he doesn’t mean  _ literally _ out of your ass.”

“Why do you select incompetent individuals to lead your society?” Spock asked, thankfully deciding not to push the whole “out of your ass” turn of phrase.

“Ain’t that a question,” Leonard drawled. They didn’t even have time to get into all that right now.

“Look,” suddenly Jim was on his feet and pacing, “Look, obviously it’s bad if they find the bodies of Spock’s crew. We’re at an advantage with them not knowing the aliens look so similar to humans…”   


“And it’s damn immoral to use the corpses of sentient beings for science experiments without their consent,” Leonard added. Jim just nodded and continued,

“Yeah, that too. But maybe, if they did find them, we’d still be at an advantage because they’d then think that everyone on board died on impact. Bones?”

Leonard held out the cereal box for Jim, somehow knowing that’s what his boyfriend was angling for. Over half a decade of living in each other’s pockets had given the two some mean nonverbal communication skills. Jim smiled and grabbed a handful of cereal. Spock just raised those pointy brows of his, clearly decided to ignore that brief exchange and focus on what Jim actually said,

“I do not believe that would be to our advantage. If the bodies of my crew mates are indeed discovered, it will be immediately obvious that someone concealed their remains.”

“Well, we could always say that we did it when we stumbled upon the crash site. It’d put us in some more shit, but we didn’t actually do anything  _ illegal _ ...I don’t think...and it’s better us than you. And by us I of course mean me,” Jim said, as if his own damn self sacrificing was just a foregone conclusion at this point. Leonard rolled his eyes,

“I think the hell not, Jim. I’m in this now, like it or not. There’s no going back from that.”

“Fine, by us I mean us,” Jim conceded, though he didn’t look happy about it. 

“And I’m pretty damn sure concealing bodies and  _ lying to the government _ is illegal.”

“Party pooper,” Jim said, then looked over at Spock and explained, “Figure of speech. Means he’s ruining my fun.”

“What about this situation is ‘fun’?” Spock asked, “It seems that all three of us are in quite a great deal of danger.”

“Nah, they’re not gonna hurt Bones or me, they’d just ruin our lives. And they probably wouldn’t kill you,” Jim shrugged, “Could be worse.”

“They’re not going to  _ kill _ you,” Leonard said, “We’ve just gotta hope they decide to leave us the hell alone, although neither Jim nor I have that kinda luck and Spock probably doesn’t either, judging by the whole ‘crash landing’ thing.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it, Leonard. I am surprised you believe in such a primitive concept. We had judged your world more advanced than that,” Spock said in that “I’m definitely insulting your entire species but will pretend it’s a neutral observation if called on it” tone of voice.

“Just a turn of phrase for the inherent chaos of the universe,” Jim explained before Leonard could request that Spock please refrain from insulting the entire human race.

“I must remind you,” Spock continued, “That my need to return to my ship has not diminished. It still contains my best chance of contacting my home world, and as we have discussed it would not be to our advantage if the bodies of my former crew mates were discovered.”

“Spock, that place has more feds than my gran’s dog had fleas,” Leonard said and Jim giggled, as he often did with Leonard’s more colorful southern metaphors. “There’s not an ice cube's chance in hell we get in and out of there without being caught.”

“You’re banned from speaking until you promise that weird ass confluence of bad metaphors isn’t going to happen again,” Jim laughed and slapped his hand over Leonard’s mouth, not flinching when Leonard succumbed to his more immature instincts and tried to bite the hand pressed against his mouth. “Anyways,” Jim continued, as if he wasn’t acting like a 5 year old, “What we really need is a way to see when there aren’t any feds around Spock’s ship. Even mindless FBI drones have to sleep at some point. Bones, did you just lick me? Fuck you.”

Leonard thought it was a bit odd for Jim to be disgusted with having his hand licked when his dick had literally been in Leonard’s mouth on a number of occasion over the past several months, but as he was just glad to finally have his boyfriend’s hand off his mouth he decided to keep that to himself.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I hate it,” Leonard said simply, because dammit if that wasn’t Jim’s scheming face and nothing good ever came from that. 

“Obviously we can’t just walk out there and hope for the best,” Jim continued, undeterred, “What we really need is a way to see remotely what’s going on. And I was thinking, well, I’ve got this friend with a drone license…”

“That’s an awfully dramatic way to say you want to call Hikaru,” Leonard said. Please, they’d had all the same friends for years, as if Jim knew someone with a drone well enough to trust with this that wasn’t Hikaru. 

“You got any better ideas?” Jim challenged, looking between Spock and Leonard, just waiting for one of them to say something. Neither did, so Jim just grinned, “Oh, he’s gonna love this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, they meant the world to me <3
> 
> *Characters' views on the competence of government officials are their own, and do not necessarily reflect that of the author. I'm sure your cousin's friend's brother who works for the Super Secret Alien Division of the FBI is super great at their job.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I'm aware it seems like the dynamics are reversed with how the boys feel about Spock vs actual canon, I promise that's both temporary and intentional and not some weird accident.


End file.
